PSP X3 - tried it - removed it!

I like the Paint Shop Pro programmes (have always had a copy on my machine, up to and including PSP X2) so when I saw that X3 was available I had to try the free download.
OMG - what a bloated mess it is when I try to use it with my 7D RAW files.
It took ages to download, crashed on install then, after rebooting I finally got it loaded - all 1.1GB of it
Opening a 7D RAW was painfully slow and when trying to edit the file it was even slower. Where LR2 or PS CS4 do the edits in real time this thing hung about and created a pixellated preview, then I watched as it worked through the calculations and finally the result was shown (it took longer to do than it did for me to type this).
I'm now trying to remove it and its hung on me - again.
I don't know who's responsible for the programming but they have finally ruined what was a nice, useful little programme (only my opinion of course, you may find it behaves differently for you - but you have been warned! ;) )

I like the Paint Shop Pro programmes (have always had a copy on my machine, up to and including PSP X2) so when I saw that X3 was available I had to try the free download.

OMG - what a bloated mess it is when I try to use it with my 7D RAW files.

It took ages to download, crashed on install then, after rebooting I finally got it loaded - all 1.1GB of it

Opening a 7D RAW was painfully slow and when trying to edit the file it was even slower. Where LR2 or PS CS4 do the edits in real time this thing hung about and created a pixellated preview, then I watched as it worked through the calculations and finally the result was shown (it took longer to do than it did for me to type this).

I'm now trying to remove it and its hung on me - again.

I don't know who's responsible for the programming but they have finally ruined what was a nice, useful little programme (only my opinion of course, you may find it behaves differently for you - but you have been warned! )

Like PSP, then Corel took over. It has been a downhill slide since.
It really is a lot more user friendly than PS and more powerful than Elements. Sadly PSP seems to have been written on top of what used to be Macromedia Player or some kind of scripted language and was painfully slow. Corel helped re-write it to be faster but failed to make a great improvement.
If they could get their act together I would drop PhotoShop in a minute. Adobe seems to be removing more features with each new release forcing you to buy more mini-products with each "upgrade".
Its all enough to make me go to film. :-)

Like PSP, then Corel took over. It has been a downhill slide since.
It really is a lot more user friendly than PS and more powerful than Elements. Sadly PSP seems to have been written on top of what used to be Macromedia Player or some kind of scripted language and was painfully slow. Corel helped re-write it to be faster but failed to make a great improvement.
If they could get their act together I would drop PhotoShop in a minute. Adobe seems to be removing more features with each new release forcing you to buy more mini-products with each "upgrade".

Probably my most favourite version of Paintshop Pro is 7, The anniversary edition.....:)
8 was where things started to change, The Corel got hold of it....:(
Back to version 7 though, It still works really well, Ran it on XP and even ran it for a while on a 64bit Vista test rig.
Might dig it out for a try under Win 7 64bit, There are a few little features only PSP has that I miss, Especially if your doing arty farty stuff....!

Probably my most favourite version of Paintshop Pro is 7, The anniversary edition.....

8 was where things started to change, The Corel got hold of it....

Back to version 7 though, It still works really well, Ran it on XP and even ran it for a while on a 64bit Vista test rig.

Might dig it out for a try under Win 7 64bit, There are a few little features only PSP has that I miss, Especially if your doing arty farty stuff....!

I have been using PSPv8 for the last 7 or 8 years. Downloaded and installed the v8.10 patch and have not felt the need for anything else other than Paint Shop Photo Album v5 which it interfaces with. OS is XP.

I have been using PSPv8 for the last 7 or 8 years. Downloaded and installed the v8.10 patch and have not felt the need for anything else other than Paint Shop Photo Album v5 which it interfaces with. OS is XP.

I did try the new Paint Shop Pro X3, and it is true it took ages to install it..and when I did and used it, it's always crashing, tried it again crashed again, uninstall it which took hours I think it was more than 3 hours to uninstall it..then reinstall it again..well, nothing works..so I end up removing it totally..and not bother of buying..thanks for the trial..because it's not good buy too..sorry Corel..better fixes those bugs

I did try the new Paint Shop Pro X3, and it is true it took ages to install it..and when I did and used it, it's always crashing, tried it again crashed again, uninstall it which took hours I think it was more than 3 hours to uninstall it..then reinstall it again..well, nothing works..so I end up removing it totally..and not bother of buying..thanks for the trial..because it's not good buy too..sorry Corel..better fixes those bugs

I read these comments before I downloaded the 30-day trial programme, so was wary. Went ahead and tried it anyway :(. As above - took ages to install (about 3 attempts to download before bypassing Corel's own downloader). On opening up the programme first time, it somehow tried (or at least seemed to try) to catalogue every photo on my PC, so was locked out from other use for ages. it wouldn't let me do anything else, nor would Windows XP task manager close it down, so ended up up doing a 'hard-kill'/ forced turn-off at main switch.
Powered up tried again, and didn' put the cursor anywhere near the lower browse pane and eventually got to open up a RAW image. The tried to find out out how to do HDR merge, so clicked on help button. PSP tried to access the internet (presumably online help). As my internet connection was not online at the time, the programme locked out AND took out my internet connection. Ie the PC would no longer go through the 'Connect' procedure - simply informed me internet was not available.
Ended up turning off again by main power switch. Went to uninstall the programme (noticed it took up approx 1.3Gb of memory!). After 45 mins to 1 hour still had only 59% uninstalled. Cancelled process. Thankfully it had done the job. Have finished clearing a few other bits off manually and had to re-install my ADSL/ Speedtouch drivers for the internet! Be warned. My PC, whilst 5 years old does more than meet the minmum system requirements for the programme
I hope others have better success as it looks as though it should have some good stuff in it!
Andy

I read these comments before I downloaded the 30-day trial programme, so was wary. Went ahead and tried it anyway . As above - took ages to install (about 3 attempts to download before bypassing Corel's own downloader). On opening up the programme first time, it somehow tried (or at least seemed to try) to catalogue every photo on my PC, so was locked out from other use for ages. it wouldn't let me do anything else, nor would Windows XP task manager close it down, so ended up up doing a 'hard-kill'/ forced turn-off at main switch.

Powered up tried again, and didn' put the cursor anywhere near the lower browse pane and eventually got to open up a RAW image. The tried to find out out how to do HDR merge, so clicked on help button. PSP tried to access the internet (presumably online help). As my internet connection was not online at the time, the programme locked out AND took out my internet connection. Ie the PC would no longer go through the 'Connect' procedure - simply informed me internet was not available.

Ended up turning off again by main power switch. Went to uninstall the programme (noticed it took up approx 1.3Gb of memory!). After 45 mins to 1 hour still had only 59% uninstalled. Cancelled process. Thankfully it had done the job. Have finished clearing a few other bits off manually and had to re-install my ADSL/ Speedtouch drivers for the internet! Be warned. My PC, whilst 5 years old does more than meet the minmum system requirements for the programme

I hope others have better success as it looks as though it should have some good stuff in it!

Thanks for the warning - I'm on X2 and shall stay with it although even that gets twitchy and regularly crashes when I try to crop a large image.
Shame X3 does looks as though there are a few goodies but I'm not prepared to cough up the upgrade cost at the moment anyway - got better and more important things to spend my money on :)

Thanks for the warning - I'm on X2 and shall stay with it although even that gets twitchy and regularly crashes when I try to crop a large image.

Shame X3 does looks as though there are a few goodies but I'm not prepared to cough up the upgrade cost at the moment anyway - got better and more important things to spend my money on

I've upgraded to it but haven't experienced the horrors you all seem to be having. I guess it probably depends on what your pc is like as I imagine this program to be very demanding on memory and processing power. Those raw files are huge and when you're tweaking, I guess there's a lot of processor cooking going on. The more ram you have, the better as the program can make use of this temporary area for dumping and retrieving so much faster than if it has to use the hard drive instead.
I've got a quad core with 2G of memory and I try not to have too many other applications open when I'm using PSP X3 so as to give the editor as much resorce as possible.
I have experienced the occassional crash which is bloody anoying, so now I've learnt to reguarly save now and then.
There are some new features I like, like the object select. I have so much trouble with the magic wand that this object select feature now just lets me roughly draw round want I want and hey presto, I've got the selected image - all of it. Nice.
On the whole, I'm happy with the product. For what it can do and for the price, it's good. As for CS4 or 5 costing a ridiculous and outrageous price of, what? £600? which does much the same tweaking and editing that I'm ever going to do, they can keep it! Will that product make an improvement on my pictures? More colourful? sharper? get rid of unsighlty marks or objects any better? Probably not. What does that program offer that justifies such a huge fat price tag? Should I pay £600 for an editor? or £59? More money than sense some people.
I reckon it's a marketing ploy by Adobe whereby giving their product a huge price tag, it makes you believe you're getting something that is really valuable and profressional, where they could really sell the product for around £50, but they won't, because the product will lose its elitism feeling and will look cheap and nasty instead. And they also play on the fact that "professional photographers" are obvioulsy only going to buy the most expensive kit - like £5k lenses and £4k camera's that they are also going to feel compelled to have to buy the most expensive editor tool on the market so as to impress other photographers with the vast amount of money they have poured into taking a nice picture. It's a marketing psycological ploy.
Am I talking bolox?? :D

I've upgraded to it but haven't experienced the horrors you all seem to be having. I guess it probably depends on what your pc is like as I imagine this program to be very demanding on memory and processing power. Those raw files are huge and when you're tweaking, I guess there's a lot of processor cooking going on. The more ram you have, the better as the program can make use of this temporary area for dumping and retrieving so much faster than if it has to use the hard drive instead.

I've got a quad core with 2G of memory and I try not to have too many other applications open when I'm using PSP X3 so as to give the editor as much resorce as possible.

I have experienced the occassional crash which is bloody anoying, so now I've learnt to reguarly save now and then.

There are some new features I like, like the object select. I have so much trouble with the magic wand that this object select feature now just lets me roughly draw round want I want and hey presto, I've got the selected image - all of it. Nice.

On the whole, I'm happy with the product. For what it can do and for the price, it's good. As for CS4 or 5 costing a ridiculous and outrageous price of, what? £600? which does much the same tweaking and editing that I'm ever going to do, they can keep it! Will that product make an improvement on my pictures? More colourful? sharper? get rid of unsighlty marks or objects any better? Probably not. What does that program offer that justifies such a huge fat price tag? Should I pay £600 for an editor? or £59? More money than sense some people.

I reckon it's a marketing ploy by Adobe whereby giving their product a huge price tag, it makes you believe you're getting something that is really valuable and profressional, where they could really sell the product for around £50, but they won't, because the product will lose its elitism feeling and will look cheap and nasty instead. And they also play on the fact that "professional photographers" are obvioulsy only going to buy the most expensive kit - like £5k lenses and £4k camera's that they are also going to feel compelled to have to buy the most expensive editor tool on the market so as to impress other photographers with the vast amount of money they have poured into taking a nice picture. It's a marketing psycological ploy.

[quote]they could really sell the product for around £50, [/quote]
I'm not sure that that's really very accurate but I do agree that it's very hard, if not impossible to justify the cost of the CS outfits.
I've got CS2 and have no intention of changing it for anything else.
It does allow me to do a lot more than editors costing £50 - £60 but ten times more? I don't think so!
Jester.

Quote:they could really sell the product for around £50,

I'm not sure that that's really very accurate but I do agree that it's very hard, if not impossible to justify the cost of the CS outfits.
I've got CS2 and have no intention of changing it for anything else.
It does allow me to do a lot more than editors costing £50 - £60 but ten times more? I don't think so!

I too have had PSP in many incarnations, I have version 7, 8 and X2.
I saw no need to change until I tried opening a Sony raw file and received an error message, Corel support suggested I upgrade to X3 as they no longe patch X2.
I refrained when I noticed the UK price for a downloaded upgrade to be £59 yet the US price was $57, quite a difference.
I queried this with Corel and was told a US version would not function on a UK machine. Considering I'd be downloading from a US site, what a load of codswallop.
I have downloaded the trial version but have to report it's as useful to me as a choccy teapot. It freezes on raw files and is painfully slow on my trusty old XP machine. As I type I am waiting for it to complete the uninstall cycle.

I too have had PSP in many incarnations, I have version 7, 8 and X2.
I saw no need to change until I tried opening a Sony raw file and received an error message, Corel support suggested I upgrade to X3 as they no longe patch X2.
I refrained when I noticed the UK price for a downloaded upgrade to be £59 yet the US price was $57, quite a difference.
I queried this with Corel and was told a US version would not function on a UK machine. Considering I'd be downloading from a US site, what a load of codswallop.

I have downloaded the trial version but have to report it's as useful to me as a choccy teapot. It freezes on raw files and is painfully slow on my trusty old XP machine. As I type I am waiting for it to complete the uninstall cycle.

I have no problem with PSPv8.10.
It is easy to resize, and easy to adjust the file size.
Geometrical errors and perspective problems can be easily rectified, horizons etc corrected.
Plus of course all the image enhancement features one needs.
[quote]I queried this with Corel and was told a US version would not function on a UK machine. Considering I'd be downloading from a US site, what a load of codswallop[/quote].
The Corel site will download whatever language version you need, American English, International English and many others. You just have to choose the right version for your country.

Somewhere in my garden shed I might find the cover disc from an early-90s issue of PC Plus that had the first giveaway free version of Paintshop Pro on it (I keep old discs in the shed to string up in Springtime as bird scarers, before you ask).
I wonder how it would look today?

Somewhere in my garden shed I might find the cover disc from an early-90s issue of PC Plus that had the first giveaway free version of Paintshop Pro on it (I keep old discs in the shed to string up in Springtime as bird scarers, before you ask).

I think my first version was PSP4, I remember downloading it on a dialup connection and the trial version was unlimited rather than 30 days, (they trusted you to purchase or delete it).
System requirements were Windows 95 or higher, Processor 486 or higher, 16Mb RAM, 10Mb of disk space. PSP 5 was the doggies dangles as it introduced working with layers.
I still prefer the JASC version 8 to any of the Corel products, it works so much faster for me.

I think my first version was PSP4, I remember downloading it on a dialup connection and the trial version was unlimited rather than 30 days, (they trusted you to purchase or delete it).
System requirements were Windows 95 or higher, Processor 486 or higher, 16Mb RAM, 10Mb of disk space. PSP 5 was the doggies dangles as it introduced working with layers.
I still prefer the JASC version 8 to any of the Corel products, it works so much faster for me.